The invention relates to a method and a machine for cleaning garments. Presently, garments are predominantly cleaned by solvents such as perchlorethene. These solvents have advantageous physical properties, such as high density, a low evaporation point, they need little thermal energy for evaporation and the cleaning procedure does not cause much shrinkage and wrinkles in the garments. However, disadvantageously, these chemicals are toxic and dangerous for the environment and various regulatory authorities put restrictions on their use. This results in machines and cleaning procedures becoming expensive. Solvents without chlorine are regarded as less toxic, but are highly inflammable and may cause explosions. Therefore, cleaning of garments in aqueous solvents is of growing importance.
Most garments can be cleaned in an aqueous solution, but the procedure of tumble action washing and spin drying in a usual machine causes shrinkage and wrinkles and the evaporation of water consumes more than six times the amount of heat consumed in evaporating perchlorethene.